Latin America. The Televisa Group and Univision announced an agreement to create a new company, which they called Televisa-Univision, through which they add production and distribution assets of both Spanish-speaking companies.
The agreement unites televisa's content part with Univision, to generate an ecosystem to meet the growing demand for content to 600 million Spanish speakers, focused on broadcasting (open TV), pay television, digital and internet transmissions (streaming).
The content library that both companies add will cover more than 300 thousand hours of programming, becoming the largest repository of content and intellectual property in Spanish. To this is added the production capacity of Televisa that, in 2020, produced more than 86 thousand hours of entertainment, sports, news and special events content.
As part of the operation, Grupo Televisa will receive a value of 4.8 billion dollars, additionally it will become the largest shareholder of the new Televisa-Univision, acquiring 45% of its shares.
The new company has strategic partners to support digital transformation, including:
- Softbank, a Japanese technology fund
- Google
- Rhe Raine Group, an investment bank specializing in technology issues
These three entities and the ForgeLight investment fund, led by Wade Davis, will contribute 1,000 million dollars to the operation and join the group of current shareholders composed of ForgeLight itself, Searchlight, Liberty Global and Grupo Televisa.
It is estimated that Televisa-Univision will be a company that reaches joint sales estimated in the order of 4,000 million dollars and an Ebitda of 1,600 million dollars, with a margin greater than 40% after synergies derived from the integration.
Televisa-Univision will have an extensive capacity to produce a substantially larger amount of content, especially in Mexico, which will be used to leverage the launch of its global OTT platform.
Wade Davis will be in charge of the new company, while Emilio Azcárraga, Bernardo Gómez and Alfonso de Angoitia will be part of the Board of Directors, the latter being the President of the Board.
Grupo Televisa will remain in charge of Emilio Azcárraga and will remain with the direct administration of Izzi, Bestel, Sky, PlayCity, Editorial, Intermex, the Azteca state, Club de Fútbol América and other businesses. In addition, it will create a new strategic area, which will be dedicated exclusively to the creation of news, information and cultural content, which will be transmitted through Televisa's platforms.
